Happy Valentine's Day

Fruit bouquet, cookie bouquet, roses bouquet, Godiva chocolates, and a present. No, that is not what I received for Valentine's Day. That is what Olivia received between the grandparents and Joe and I. I think that she did pretty well for her third ever Valentine's Day. Her poor future boyfriends and husband will have a lot to live up to!

This year Olivia made a Valentine's mailbox to put special goodies and letters in for the family. She had a great time making multiple cards for everyone, checking the box for little surprises from Joe and I, and reading and rereading all of her cards that she received. I believe that this is definitely a tradition to continue next year.


A princess and her flowers.

A special cookie bouquet from Grandma and Grandpa.

Mmmmm...cookie.

Just a picture I think is funny. Ethan loves Olivia's dollhouse, almost more than Olivia does. He pulls up on it, moves around the furniture, chews on the dolls, and plays peek-a-boo through the windows. I cannot remember what happened in this picture to make him cry.

The weekend after Valentine's Day we received a visit from Grammy and Uncle Brennan. We took a trip to the Natural History Museum ("animal museum" per Olivia) together. As crazy as Mother Nature has been this winter, I wouldn't be surprised if grasshoppers of this size began to appear in Iowa City this summer.

Olivia and her new friend at the museum.

Making noodle necklaces with Grammy. Kim's trip came at both the right and wrong time. The right time for us in that on the Sunday of her visit, Iowa City received yet another winter storm (by the way, we are at 53.1 inches and counting - more snow expected next week). Joe and I didn't see it as a big deal until Joe went into our garage and found 4 inches of water throughout the entire garage. The water was from faulty sump pump tubes that leaked back into the garage. Luckily, Kim was there to watch the kids while Joe, Brennan, and I worked to clean out the garage and shovel six inches of wet snow (a big thank you to Brennan for the help!). The wrong time in that we didn't get to do any of our plans for Sunday or spend much time with Kim on that day. Anyway, it was a great visit overall.

Forty Inches of Snow and Counting

Thus far Iowa City has received 40 inches of snow, half of which has fallen in the last 2 weeks. And it is only February 9, with more snow predicted over the next several days. It has really become a joke here amongst the people; there are no more snow shovels in town, no ice melt, and there is no where else to plow the snow that is falling so trucks are hauling it all to who only knows where. Right now we have about 20 inches of snow on the ground, and no warm up in sight to melt it.


This is a "before picture". Not much is happening, but I posted it so everyone could see the dramatic difference between this picture and latter ones. Here we had 10 inches of snow on the ground (8 inches fell on Super Bowl Sunday and 2 inches from an earlier snowfall). The snow that is falling is the beginning of the 11 inches of snow we received 2 days after the big game. Please note the lack of giant snow drifts and that you can still see the wooden planters and bushes.



Olivia has some snow time fun with daddy.

An "after picture" with 20 inches of snow on the ground. Let me tell you, shoveling was no fun since we had to really lift the shovel pretty high to get the snow over the drifts (a big thanks to the 2 neighbors that helped us!). Anyway, as you can see, the drift is higher than Olivia (even if you took away the wooden ledge it still would be), the lamp is buried, and on the right side of the picture is where the wooden planters are supposed to be.

Here you can see that Olivia's leg is completely sunk into the snow and I doubt that she is even touching the ground. Her big smiles didn't last too long in the snow today. It is difficult to walk on, impossible to sled in, and wasn't that enjoyable overall.

Ethan buried up to his shoulders in the snow. He was obviously not happy about sitting in the snow.

Olivia loves the book "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" where they make pink snow. So of course we had to make some pink snow today, too.

Joe made a snow tunnel for Olivia today. When else will this chance arrive? I cannot remember central Illinois receiving this much snow all at once for decades. I must admit, I was much more excited about the idea of a snow tunnel than Olivia was, but she still enjoyed it.

Ethan still crying in the snow.

Joe enjoying his creation.

Where is Waldo? (I mean, Olivia.)

Since Ethan was crying in his previous pictures, I wanted to post a happy picture of him. He really is an overall happy baby - not much crying comes from him. Just lots and lots of energy - he is now an expert crawler, is starting to climb on things, can dance (just sort of bounces along), waves when prompted, can walk behind a push toy for a short amount of time, and loves to babble loudly (namely mom-mom-mom or bababa, Joe is working on dadada).

Just a random picture of how Olivia attempts to keep Ethan at bay. Her new game is to shout "Oh, no! There is a monster baby coming! Help!" She will then attempt to "save" whatever toy she is playing with. At least Ethan thinks it is all fun and games. Learning to share with Ethan is an ongoing process now. She shares great with kids her age, though, so we have hope that this will eventually transfer to Ethan as well.